Gyromorphs: a new class of functional disordered materials

Abstract

We introduce a new class of functional correlated disordered materials, termed Gyromorphs, which uniquely combine liquid-like translational disorder with quasi-long-range rotational order, induced by a ring of $G$ delta peaks in their structure factor. We generate gyromorphs in $2d$ and $3d$ by spectral optimization methods, verifying that they display strong discrete rotational order but no long-range translational order, while maintaining rotational isotropy at short range for sufficiently large $G$. Using a coupled dipoles approximation, we numerically show that these structures outperform quasicrystals, stealthy hyperuniformity, and Vogel spirals in the formation of low-index-contrast isotropic bandgaps in $2d$, for both scalar and vector waves, and open complete isotropic bandgaps in $3d$. This claim is further supported by analytical effective-medium theory and by numerical estimates of scattering mean-free paths. Finally, we introduce ``polygyromorphs'' with several rotational symmetries at different length scales (i.e., multiple rings of delta peaks), enabling the formation of multiple bandgaps in a single structure, thereby paving the way for fine control over optical properties.